GOP Convention, 2nd Night, 2nd Part

...and then ex-pastor, ex-governor, ex-fattie, ex-rock band musician, current Fox TV host (where failed GOP poo-bahs go if they don't want to become lobbyists) Mike Huckabee spoke.

His speech was remarkably despicable for an ex-pastor. Unless you count that "God Hates Fags" guy in Kansas or Jim Jones, I guess.

Do you need more than this one example? He said that President Obama supported infanticide. No, he didn't say "infanticide." He said Obama was OK with destroying human life, even "out of the womb." That's infanticide.

Everything else he said was consistent with this scraping of the underside of the bottom of the barrel, rhetoricwise.

Condoleeza Rice appeared onstage after that--practically the only hint that the Republicans ran the country from 2000-2008. She banged the drums of war vigorously, only slightly less fervent than Senator McCain (she isn't a hothead--just a follower who replaced the less obedient Colin Powell because President Bush II knew she'd do as she was told).

Next came New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, a Republican convert with all the enthusiasm of the convert. And one of several dozen Mexican-Americans who are Republicans. A gun-totin' ex-prosecutor. The crowd looooved her. Not to mention her being mildly attractive and a competent public speaker to boot, who boasted of being able to work with a Democratic state legislature.

She got her second standing ovation (after bragging about her gun) when she riffed off the canard about President Obama telling small business owners they "didn't build that."

That is, she was perfectly willing to sling mud with the best of 'em. It will be interesting if she can overcome the odor the GOP has acquired with Latinos and get some votes from there. I say this tactically, since personally I'm well to the right of the Republican Party leadership on this issue.

Next we got a quick video mentioning how proud Romney's dad would be of him.

Maybe. After repudiating every last smidgen of the father's moderate conservatism and trying to win through continual lying--which I don't believe the father had done--would Romney's father approve of his son winning "by any means necessary?"

The video led straight to the GOP's idea of a smart guy, Paul Ryan, speaking. You know, the guy who's the deficit hawk who voted for every single Bush era spending bill without a peep out of him about paying for them. The guy who authored or co-authored literally dozens of anti-abortion bills--including  thumping the tub for a Constitutional amendment that would effectively ban all abortion under any circumstances by declaring that a one-celled fertilized egg is a little man or woman. The Republican platform proposes banning abortion even in cases of rape--including child rape--or incest.

And the man whose presence on the ticket repudiates the idea that business credentials are the main qualification for the presidency. (The last businessman-president? Herbert Hoover, the nice man who gave us the Great Depression.)

He asked "Without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?"

Then he dismissed the stimulus as a set of gifts to Democratic cronies, echoing Romney's eagerness to see the American automobile industry vanish except for Ford Motors. Which it would have. He mentioned Solyndra of course, while omitting all the companies that succeeded.

And then he attacked RomneyCare--er, I mean ObamaCare. He said ObamaCare. And got a standing ovation. The pharmaceutical industry was collectively delighted, and so were the delegates. Ryan promised to repeal ObamaCare if they're elected.

Note to anyone who might someday play poker with Ryan: he furrows his forehead and tilts his head when he's lying. That's his tell.

I got to see a lot of this during his speech--both the lying and the furrowed brow.

Big standing ovation. So that little business about if you get sick the health insurance provider death panel can deny you health insurance over some technicality and even sue you for past payments? Back in spades.

And throughout not a word about the no holds barred Congressional Republicans' obstructionism that blocked so much of the president's efforts. And not a word about the plain fact that all Ryan's talk about the deficit is belied by his own behavior when the debt was being run up by the GOP reign of error.

He's great at looking like he cares for the little guy. God help the little guy if the little guy falls for it.

Underlying his full-throated attack on President Obama is complete denial of Congress's role in running the nation's economics.

He said "We need to stop spending money we don't have."

Okay, all you people who bought a house on time? A car? Sell the house and move into an apartment. Sell the car and buy whatever you can pay cash for. The government? Every rational economist says government should cut spending in the good times and spend in the bad times.

FDR's attempt to curtail spending before we were out of the woods in the Great Depression prolonged it.

Ryan is an ideologue--earnest, smiling, intelligent-seeming, with no real world experience except in government--whose ideas would all fit on bumper stickers with room to spare.

And he echoed the Big Lie every other speaker has echoed so far: "Yes you did build that." This is Frank Luntz behind the scenes, picking the most effective propaganda to play angry white men without a college degree--the heart of the new Republican Party rank and file.

This is yet another trickle-down economics guy--give to the rich and enough crumbs will spill off their groaning table to feed the rest of us.

He also had to attack President Obama's foreign policy, which has been adroit by the measure of people who actually know what they're talking about. Ryan's is the usual GOP chest-thumping--what I call "Speak loudly and carry a little stick."

Ryan is slicker than Huckabee--and even more sickening once you pry open the hood and see the machinations going on there.

"A government-planned life where everything is free but us." Yes, that's the way the GOP sees things. Individual freedom. "Over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners." Except where abortion is concerned of course.

Supervision...this is code for "regulation." Salmonella in your salad? You should have looked closer. Cars that blow up if they're rear ended (remember the Ford Pinto?)? Hey, you were free to choose another. Your house burglarized? Cops are socialized protection. Arm your wife instead and put her in a gun turret on top of your compound. Stock market rigged by traders whose computers shift stocks in milliseconds and foist financial instruments on the country that nobody can understand? You were so immoral as to not be rich. Deal with your immorality.

"He turned around the Olympics... bad management and corruption" (He turned around the Olympics by extracting 1.5 billion dollars from our pockets--funny, Ryan didn't mention that.)

Now he's honoring our veterans--that's rich. The GOP keeps trying to cut veterans' benefits.

The GOP: "You're on your own pal." There is no such thing as community. Only me.

Well, the faithful adored Ryan. He's certainly their guy. They howled and whooped their total endorsement of every single thing he said. He said "We will not duck the tough issues" after doing exactly that.

He included the lie that Obama raided the Medicare fund, when in fact his plan exhausts Medicare in 2016 while the Obama plan would keep it going to 2024. And both move money from Medicare in the same way, making his critique breathtaking hypocrisy.

He criticized the President for walking away from Simpson-Bowles. Which he voted against.
And through the rest of the speech--point after point, his own past behavior completely contradicted what he said.

Interestingly, it looks like a Romney-Ryan presidency may well turn out to be a Ryan-Romney presidency, just as the Bush-Cheney presidency turned out to be rather the opposite, at least through Bush II's first term. He has the wide-eyed clarity of someone who has reduced messy reality to ideological simplicity. The proles will looove him.

The factcheckers are going to have a field day with this.

This was not a speech to the undecided 5% of independents. This was preaching to the choir, pure and simple, just as Bush II did when he ran.

And the Libertarian pick for president is....Barack Obama. Seriously.

That's right. Good Libertarians should vote for Barack Obama this November.

Get your jaw off the floor and I'll explain why.

Libertarians favor personal freedom & limited government, right?

Well--the best way to not get those two items is to let either major party gain control of all three branches of government. Because both parties agree on one thing at least: "to the victor belong the spoils." And by "victor" I don't mean you if your side wins. I mean your party's patrons--the individuals and groups whose political donations make it possible for your party's politicians to win.

This is why independents--including Libertarians--frequently vote for the governor or president of the other party from the one controlling the legislature--especially if the party controlling the legislature also controls the judiciary.

Both major parties have demonstrated that they cannot govern themselves--and that they are far more beholden to the individuals and special interests who are their patrons rather than their rank and file voters.

So a good Libertarian realizes that neither party runs by Libertarian principles. The Republican Party talks a more Libertarian game than the Democratic Party does, but it doesn't walk the walk. The GOP from 2000 through 2008, eight long years during which it enjoyed effective control of all three branches of government, increased government size enormously and the deficit enormously. That wasn't George Bush II's fault. In America the Chief Executive can't pass laws, though he can veto them. It was the Republican leadership's fault, most of which is still in place, since both parties have jiggered the laws to greatly favor the incumbents.

George Romney is closer to a Libertarian than Barack Obama. So what? Obama's domestic policies don't matter if Congress is GOP-controlled, and Romney's policies don't matter much either--just his right hand, needed to sign bills sent him. Does anyone doubt that he'll sign anything the GOP Congress sends him--as Bush II did for nearly his entire time in office?

If you think a Romney victory wouldn't lead to a massive expansion in government and a reduction in personal freedoms, you're dreaming.

I'm not making a prediction. I'm just pointing to what the Republican Party did from 2000 through 2010 federally and what it's done in the states it gained full control over in 2010. First order of business in the states, after running on a jobs, jobs, jobs theme? Pass anti-abortion laws and fire state employees.

Federally, Congressman Ryan alone has introduced dozens of anti-abortion bills to Congress and has consistently endorsed banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest--reflected in the fact that the Republican Party's official platform--that you can read yourself--says the same thing: banning all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest. Congressman Akins' mistake was in saying to the general public what the GOP actually believes but only wants its fervent evangelical base to hear.

Fiscally, the Ryan-Romney budget inflates the deficit enormously. Neither Ryan nor Romney are willing to specify exactly which loopholes they'd cut, even after persistent questioning by reporters. Given past actions by the GOP, you have no reason to believe they won't say which because they won't cut any loopholes that benefit any Republicans. And that's pretty much all of them--all that might alter the deficit at least.

No responsible, nonpartisan economist says we can close the deficit without raising taxes on the rich and the middle class as well as reducing government expenditures. It is Libertarian to pay as you go. Not to tax and spend. Not to borrow and spend. Congress won't spend less unless Obama's there to veto Congress's borrow and spend mania. The Tea Party congressmen promise they'll fix this. They won't. That's already happened with the Ryan budget, enthusiastically endorsed by the Tea Party Congressmen.

Voting for Obama is the less of two evils in November for Libertarians.

Here's FactCheck.org's current article on how Romney can't keep his tax promises.

The Man with the Plan--Chairman Ryan

Chairman Ryan's supporters call his plan for tax "reform" "brave." How is it brave for a politician to promise huge tax cuts for everyone (everyone wealthy at least) without saying just which loopholes he'd eliminate to offset those tax cuts?

He says "Trust me" instead of saying what he'd do.

Really? Given his voting record during the Bush II administration, absent specifics what I can trust is that he'll do the same now as he did then: vote for huge tax cuts paid for by borrowing. That's what Republicans do: borrow and spend. The Democrats may be profligate but at least they're honest about their policies.

Because Ryan's record shows that he's no deficit hawk. Not when a Republican's in the White House he isn't. Has he experienced some kind of conversion on the road to Damascus? Or is it more of the same-old, same-old: crying for reform while out of office, then it's "let the good times roll" for the party's patrons as soon as the foxes are back in the henhouse.

He's the "man with the plan" all right. The main part of which is the one he won't share with us.

Lastly, readers should realize this isn't an election about President Obama's policies vs. Governor Romney's rubber stamp of Ryan's policies.

It's about whether the nation will have a Republican-dominated Congress, Executive and Judiciary branch, or a Republican-dominate Congress and Judiciary branch with the check of a Democratic executive branch.

Meaning if President Obama wins re-election, virtually none of his domestic policies will be enacted, because Congress writes and passes legislation--not the President. This isn't a parliamentary system where the winning party holds all the cards. It's a system with sand in the gears designed into the system.

Now you may want a Republican trifecta if you believe that the last time we had this--from 2000 to 2010--that our government paid as it went, instituted sound fiscal reforms, paid for its wars instead of sending the bill to the next generation, and by the end of that period had the average American in a better economic position than at the beginning.

If that's so, vote for another Republican trifecta. If that's not so, vote for one branch of government being of the other party, so as to reign in the other party's total inability to govern itself by its own stated principles.

This has nothing to do with Governor Romney's qualification--though by choosing Ryan he's made it clear that he doesn't believe a business background is a relevant qualification. It has to do with whether you believe either party, when it controls all three branches, can resist the urge for self-dealing and prioritizing consolidating power over what we sent them all there to do.

Where are the jobs?

Chairman Ryan's opening salvo as VP candidate was to tell voters to ask President Obama "Where are the jobs?"

What he didn't say--but obviously wanted to think--were these propositions:

1. That America's President is responsible for employment in America--not Congress, not world economic events like the Euro crisis, not events in the states (many controlled by Republican legislatures and governors, though those are preoccupied with vote suppression and banning abortion instead of working on the economy), not the courts. So apparently the Republicans believe the American President is actually a king with term limits, and nothing the Republicans in the Senate have to block Presidential initiatives and appointments and Democratic legislation has had the slightest effect on joblessness.

2. That when a president takes office, nothing the previous administration and Congress did has any effect on joblessness during the current president's term. The idea that the Republicans handed the Democrats a problem so huge it would take 20 years to solve, then gave the Democrats a year to do so--while fighting the Democrats' efforts every inch of the way? Inconceivable, to quote one of my favorite characters from Princess Bride.

3. That world events outside the control of any American president or legislature have no effect whatsoever on joblessness in this country.

4. That the current level of joblessness isn't a vast improvement on what it would be if the Republicans had won the last election. You're supposed to compare current joblessness with the lowest rate of unemployment at the height of the last boom, not with what the actual alternatives are now during the recession and deficit the Republicans handed President Obama.

5. That we actually have a parliamentary system, in which the country's chief executive is always a member of the party with a majority in congress, without our Senate's rules that let a minority throw sand in the gears of majority efforts. In such a system the country's chief executive and his or her party can ram through whatever legislation they want; they OWN the government and they're responsible for what happens in the country (always with the proviso that even in parliamentary systems a new government's first hand is the one the other side dealt them coming in, and no nation is an island (so to speak).

In our system the president has a huge bully pulpit and considerable leeway in foreign affairs, but domestically he's actually more like Administrator in Chief than a parliamentary system's Prime Minister. Even when the president's party has a majority in both houses of Congress, it's still nearly impossible to make anything happen or get anyone appointed unless the president's party has not just a majority in the Senate but over 60 votes--and even then they can be daunted by ability of the Republican Party to mount lavishly financed hits on any Congressman at any time--like just before an election, too late to mount a counterattack.

My advice: turn over the Republican's rocks and shine a flashlight on what's scurrying around in the dark.

Governor Romney says his business background irrelevant

That's right. According to Governor Romney, his business background is not an important qualification for being President of the United States. Of course this isn't his words. It's his actions. And don't actions speak louder than words?

The action is his choice of Vice President: a 42 year old man with exactly zero business experience--none whatsoever.

So unless you believe that Mitt Romney is immortal and invincible, and if you believe that the Vice President's constitutional job description is "Takes over if the President is killed or incapacitated," then you must agree that the traits and background needed for the job of Vice President are exactly the same as for President.

Which means you must base a vote for President Obama or Governor Romney on their experience in government--Romney as, in his words, the "severely conservative" governor of Massachusetts for one term vs. President Obama's experience in a state legislature, in the national legislature, and as President of the United States, plus Chairman Ryan for his long service in the House of Representatives, plus Vice President Biden for his long service in Congress plus his experience as Vice President of the United States/

Of course there are other relevant things--policy positions, strategic vision, personal character, life story, spouse, education, demonstrated understanding of the needs and concerns of most Americans, mastery of foreign policy issues and tactics, international experience.

Just not business experience. I'd thought it had some relevance myself, but Governor Romney overruled me this weekend with his choice of Chairman Ryan.